Malicious Märchen
by Faye-Morgan
Summary: Nagi's ill, so Schu tells him a bedtime story. Read into the bile what you will.


I shouldn't be writing this. I have a 5000 word essay on German Romanticism due in at 3pm tomorrow. But I just couldn't shake the image of Schu telling Nagi a little German bed-time story, so hopefully this will give my creative juices a little kick-start when it comes to dealing with Goethe. 'Undine' just so happens to be written by Fouqué so that's not mine snorts as if I would ever write such a … ummm, not going to spoil this. Also, Schuldig is recalling this from his childhood, so some of the details may be muddled (read: I am not a bog enough fan of the thing to reread the entire book with this essay looming. I will write short one-shots instead of work, but a novel written in nineteenth century German would just make me feel too guilty). And you might be able to infer numerous undercurrents from this … not least why I never tried babysitting.  
  
Disclaimers: Weiss ain't mine, Undine ain't mine, Schwartz ain't mine. I'm doing this out of boredom.  
  
Summary: Nagi is sick, so Schu tells him a nice little bedtime story ;). Ahem.  
  
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Malicious Märchen  
  
Schuldig gritted his teeth as another pitiful bout of coughing echoed through the apartment. He had been left alone in the apartment by Crawford with a sick kid who was not going to let him forget it. So despite the German's best efforts to ignore the Kind and concentrate in the charms of alcohol and cable, the sounds of sniffing and coughing continued to distract him. He gritted his teeth and flipped his orange hair indignantly, what did the bloody child want from him anyway? He wasn't a goddamned nursemaid. Prodigy was just going to have to learn to look after himself. It was just the flu after all, it wasn't like he was dying or anything.  
  
He endured the emotional blackmail for another five minutes before pulling himself of the couch with a long-suffering sigh and making his way over to Nagi's room. With little concern for the room's occupant, Schuldig banged opened the door and flipped on the light switch. "Okay, what's it going to take to shut you up, huh?"  
  
The small form huddled up in the substantial pile of covers glared at the occupant with red-rimed and bloodshot eyes. "I'm sick, stop being such a fucking arsehole."  
  
Schuldig pulled a face of mock sympathy. "Oh, really? Wie Schade. Tugs at the heartstrings. Now shut up and learn to suffer in silence."  
  
The quiet that followed was broken by the muffled snivelling noises. Schuldig rolled his eyes. "You're not crying, are you? Gott in Himmel."  
  
"I'm not!" Came the indignant reply. "It's just …" At the chibi's continued silence Schuldig simply reached into the kid's mind. A smirk spread across his face and he tried unsuccessfully not to laugh. "Schuldig! Don't do that!" Nagi protested.  
  
Schuldig's smirk widened. "You want a bedtime story? That'll shut you up?"  
  
"Oh yeah, like you'd know any," Nagi muttered.  
  
"I do so!" Schuldig retaliated. "I did have a childhood you know."  
  
"The Reader's Wives section of some smut magazine doesn't count," Nagi countered as he turned away. He closed his eyes and coughed again. His eyes snapped open again as his bed sagged with Schuldig's additional weight. "What the…"  
  
"You want a story or not? Remember I expect you to shut up after this," muttered the German. He shifted his weight slightly, causing the mattress to bounce slightly. "Right okay, this is the story my mother always told me when I was sick. It's about a beautiful young girl called Undine."  
  
"That's a really crappy name," Nagi commented snidely, but it was half- hearted.  
  
"You keep interrupting and you can just forget this entire thing," Schuldig warned. He waited for anymore protests from Nagi, and took the silence as an invitation to continue. "So anyway, Undine was beautiful, but she had a secret. A secret involving her past. You see, although Undine lived with an old fisherman and his wife, she wasn't their real daughter. Their real daughter had fallen into the lake by their home when she was only a baby and was given up for dead. The fisherman and his wife had grieved horribly, but then one day, a beautiful girl appeared at their door. She was soaking wet and unable to tell them anything about herself other than her name. They concluded that she must have fallen into the lake and somehow made her way to shore. They took Undine in and raised her as their own.  
  
"Now when Undine had reached eighteen years of age a handsome Knight appeared. This was quite surprising for he had arrived at their house not by means of the lake, but through the cursed forest that effectively cut the fisherman and his family off from the outside world. No sooner had he laid eyes on Undine than he fell madly in love with her beauty. However Undine was headstrong and failed to treat with Knight with the deference her parents felt he deserved. Although the Knight couldn't care less, he wasn't exactly thinking with his brain you see, Undine got into a terrible argument with her parents and ran off into a terrible storm.  
  
"Of course the Knight went out to look for her, but could find no sign of her. The storm was getting worse and he eventually found the girl standing on a small island that had formed when the stream that fed the lake burst its banks. Without a thought to his own safety, the Knight heroically made his way over to where Undine was. She immediately flung her arms around him and announced her feelings for him and the Knight responded in kind. It was then that her father arrived and when he agreed to accept the pair, they crossed back across the flood water that was already receding."  
  
"Wow that's convenient," Nagi muttered.  
  
"Anyway," Schu continued with a pointed glare. "The flood waters and storm rose again not long after they got to the hut, effectively cutting them off completely from the outside world. Strangely enough, they were completely cared for on their little make-shift island, fish were plentiful and casks of wine would wash up on the shore. Undine and the Knight fell deeper in love and decided to get married. That was the day when a Priest washed up on the island, the only survivor of a boating accident. The Knight was surprised by the convenience of the event, but Undine took it in her stride and asked the Father to marry them. He agreed and that night the Knight and Undine were joined in holy matrimony. It was also the night when Undine's secret was at last revealed.  
  
"Undine was in fact a water sprite of high and noble ranking, and as such had influence over the waters that surrounded them. She had been sent to dry land because as an elemental there was one thing she lacked. A soul. The only way she could get one was to fall in love and marry a human man.  
  
"The next day, everyone noticed the difference in Undine, where she had before been impulsive and quick to anger, she was now sweet, demure and basically the perfect wife. Her husband, the Knight stupidly thought that her origins would never bother him and the pair decided to head back to his castle together, as the flood had finally died down completely."  
  
"I've heard about trapping people into marriage, but that's just ridiculous," Nagi commented. Schuldig made to leave, but was restrained by an unseen force. "Please, go on," Nagi begged. "I'll be good."  
  
Schuldig paused for a moment. "Okay, but anymore interruptions and you can forget hearing how this ends. So, the happy couple arrive back at the castle where they are greeted by none other than the beautiful lady who challenged the Knight to journey into the cursed forest. Needless to say, Bertalda was not best pleased find the man she'd always wanted for herself married to some beautiful and mysterious stranger, and this descended into outright anger when Bertalda was revealed to be the long lost daughter of the fisherman. Instead of being delighted to finally know her parents, the lady was humiliated and ashamed of her low birth and blamed Undine for her humiliation. Undine was upset by Bertalda's distress and so offered to let her stay with them instead of returning to her parents. This turned out to be a mistake.  
  
"For while the couple had been happy and contented in the forest, the Knight began to realise just how unusual his bride was in comparison to the normal humans around him. He began to fear her strange abilities and found himself being drawn to the beautiful Bertalda, for although she was nothing to look at when compared to his wife, she was human and therefore more deserving of his affection than some freak of nature. The servants all preferred Undine to the snobbish, and cruel Bertalda who was basically a real bitch, but their opinions had little effect on the straying Knight."  
  
"One day, the Knight found Bertalda in a worse rage than usual as Undine had blocked up the large well in the central courtyard. The Knight angrily confronted his wife, who pleaded in her defence that her watery relatives had noticed the Knight's growing displeasure with her and felt that they might take action against her husband and Bertalda. So she blocked the well and sealed it from their influence. She also warned the Knight that should he ever scold her on water, her relatives would be sure to take her back to their underwater kingdom where they would imprison her. The Knight felt bad for all his accusations and began to remember his original feelings for his wife. They decided to leave the castle and travel down the Danube with Bertalda to escape from the tensions of the palace.  
  
"Unfortunately, this was a really sucky idea. Undine was unable to sleep, for every time she did, squalls would rise up and attack the boat, or terrible faces would appear in the water until Undine awoke and banished them. Bertalda and the Knight began to avoid Undine, as they were scared of her and her strange powers. Things came to a head one day as Betalda lay trailing her hand in the water. She lost a small piece of gold jewellery that the Knight had bought for her and started to wail and generally cause a fuss. While she raged, Undine trailed her hand in the water and raised it out to reveal a beautiful coral necklace in her hands, which she offered to Bertalda in exchange. Bertalda threw the necklace overboard and yelled at Undine, the Knight joining in to take Bertalda's part soon after. It was then that he suddenly realised Undine's warning as his wife seemed to collapse into water and disappeared overboard. Everyone felt grief at her apparent death."  
  
In the silence that followed, Nagi sneaked a glance at the redheaded German who was deep in thought. "Schuldig? Is that it?" he asked after a while. "Because, no offence, that's a really nasty ending."  
  
The telepath snorted in laughter. "That's not the end kid, there's still more. See, it wasn't long before the Knight decided his creepy ex-wife was dead and gone and so arranged to marry Bertalda. He had numerous dreams, warning him that this would be an awful mistake, but all he could think about was getting the girl, so the ceremony went ahead. That day, Bertalda decided to wash using the wonderful well water that been denied from her for so long. The servants thought it would be very hard to remove the huge stone that covered it, but the stone seemed to almost lever itself off as the water welled up beneath in a fountain. Then out of the fountain came a veiled figure dressed in a white gown who cried with heartfelt sorrow. The servants all ran in fear, for they recognised this figure to be none other than their ex-mistress Undine. Weeping, she made her way to the bridal chamber where the Knight waited for his new bride. Upon seeing Undine he was overcome with fear and demanded to know what she was doing there. She responded sadly, that as he was betraying her, she was being forced to claim his life and with a kiss of ice, she drained the life from him. She then returned to the well and vanished from sight. Bertalda was also overcome with grief and to cut a long story short, everybody lived in complete and utter abject despair because a freak thought that maybe she wasn't doomed to be alone and miserable and perhaps someone would love her for who she was, regardless of what she was. The end."  
  
Without waiting for a response from the rather shell-shocked looking Nagi, Schuldig stood up and left the room. He settled himself back on the sofa and flipped on the television, waiting for Brad to get back. He felt like relieving some of the tension, babysitting had built up. From Nagi's room, he could hear what sounded like muffled sobs and turned up the volume as his face composed itself into a twisted smirk. It would do the kid good, he reasoned, people needed to get to grips with real life or they would only be more miserable.  
  
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Ta da!!! The End. And that REALLY is the fairy story. Read and Review please! 


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